It is a widely practiced custom throughout many areas of the world for women and, in some instances, men to wear ornamental jewelry. Each jeweled ornament is usually singularly dedicated for use as only one type of jewelry piece. This jewelry may take a variety of different forms which may be worn directly attached to the wearer, as for example in the case of earrings, or may be attached to the wearer's clothes in stickpin fashion. One example of a jewelry ornament attached to the wearer's clothes is a broach, which may be attached to a lapel of a jacket worn by the user. Although it is common to have a set of different, but matching, jewelry pieces having some common characteristics, each of the different jewelry pieces in a set generally has its own ornament and is structurally and functionally independent from the other pieces in the set.
Although this prior art practice of using singularly dedicated jewelry ornaments is quite acceptable for relatively inexpensive costume jewelry, it has serious economic consequences for fine jewelry where the cost of the jewelry ornament is great. The high economic costs of fine jewelry ornaments has significantly limited the sales potential for such ornaments. When purchased, the jewelry ornament may be worn only for the singularly dedicated use for which the particular jewelry piece is designed. Consequently, the per use economic cost of the jewelry is extraordinarily high for those pieces having expensive jewelry ornaments.
There have been many attempts in the prior art to make interchangeable jewelry assemblies. However, for the most part, the interchangability in products resulting from these attempts has been limited to interchanging a plurality of different ornaments on a particular and specific type of fastening element. While clearly useful, the structures resulting from these efforts do little to address the economic problems associated with the use of expensive jewelry ornaments. Instead of permitting several uses for a single ornament, these prior art efforts have generally permitted only the use of multiple ornaments with one or several fastening elements. The reason for this shortcoming of prior art jewelry assemblies is that different types of jewelry pieces are supported in different ways, and it is difficult to design a fastening means capable of accommodating such diverse requirements.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,071,938 to Davidson, a continuous scroll-like wire with a guard on its outboard portion is inserted through the earlobe to support a loop-type jewelry ornament. The scroll-like wire is run through a loop of the jewelry ornament before insertion of the wire into the earlobe. The loop of the drop ornament is slidable on a section of the wire, but is prevented from sliding off by the guard at one end, and by the earlobe at the opposite end. Once the wire is removed from the earlobe, the drop ornament may be removed and replaced with another drop ornament having a similar loop. However, no provision is made to use any of the ornaments as any type of jewelry piece besides earrings. Additional structures for detachably mounting a plurality of different drop ornaments upon a common earring stud or earring fastener are also disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,797,561 to Vaughn and 3,116,616 to Bangs.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,443,398 to King, Jr., an interchangeable earring assembly is disclosed which allows the wearer to interchange the elements of conventional pierced earrings with modified pierced earrings for attaching ornamental drops. This interchangeability is achieved in the King, Jr. patent through the use of specially designed thin concave dish-type adapters. Like the previously discussed references, the King Jr. patent does not disclose a structure permitting the earring ornament to be used as any type of jewelry piece except an earring.
Additionally, chain type necklaces and bracelets of the prior art are frequently used to support drop type jewelry ornaments which are secured to the chain of the necklace or bracelet by horizontal loops fixedly secured to the jewelry ornaments. To a limited extent, these ornaments may be interchangeably used with a necklace chain or a bracelet chain. It may even be possible to utilize some of these necklace jewelry ornaments having horizontal loops affixed thereto with some of the loop supported earring assemblies disclosed in the above-identified patents. However, none of these loop supported drop-type jewelry ornaments have been universally interchangeable, and none are readily adaptable for use as brooch, for example.
An additional problem with the conventional drop-type jewelry ornaments of the prior art is that the loops used to connect these ornaments to chains or earring studs are readily visable and aesthetically detract from the jewelry piece. Such concern over asthetics has strongly discouraged the use of such a simple horizontal loop connectors for fine jewelry ornaments, for the use of the loop may detract from the ornament's aesthetic appeal and significantly reduce the economic value of the ornament. The concern over economic loss is particularly pronounced when the ornament is a fine jewelry piece, as the potential for economic loss increases in proportion to the value of the jewelry ornament. For these reasons, most designers of fine jewelry seldom use such loops to secure their jewelry to the wearer or to the wearer's clothing.